Peart Water

Peart Water is formed by a number of headwaters that rise on Middle Hill and Lydeard Hill in the Quantocks.The Middle Hill stream is known as Peart Water and rises at an elevation of approx 280metres and flows in a generally north westerly direction, past Durborough Farm, Aisholt and below Aisholt Woods to reach Hawkridge Reservoir after a journey of approx 2.2 miles.

The Lydeard Hill stream rises at an elevation of approximately 270 metres just above Kenley Farm. It flows past Gibb Hill, Lambridge Farm, Lower Merridge, and Lower Aisholt. At Lower Aisholt a further headstream joins from the west which rises close to Ralph's Copse. From Lower Aisholt the water flows in a northerly direction reaching Hawkridge Reservoir after a journey of approx 2.5 miles.

Both headwaters combine to flow beneath the Broomyland Hill road bridge to enter Hawkridge Reservoir. The elevation at this point is near 110 metres.

Hawkridge reservoir was built as a water supply reservoir in the early sixties for the Borough of Bridgwater. The dam, designed by John Taylor & Sons, is close to 200 metres in length with a height of 27 metres. Today it feeds the Ashford Water Treatment works and is owned by Wessex Water and is also a fishing reservoir well stocked with a range of Trout. The area of the dam is approximately 32 acres.

After flowing from the dam, Peart Water , flows in a north easterly direction towards Spaxton where it turns to a northerly direction to reach Ashford Reservoir. The water's journey to Ashford Reservoir is close to 2 miles. The elevation at this point is near 35 metres.

Ashford is a small embankment dam built in 1934. In 2009 the existing banks were removed and replaced with a new concrete wall capable of holding back 45,000,000 litres of water.

After leaving Ashford Reservoir, and after flowing to near 5 miles from its source, the Peart Water joins with the Currypool stream to form the Cannington Brook.